Page 1 of The Lyon’s Love Letters (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #78)

L ady Anna Parbury looked up from the atlas she’d spread across a table as her maid burst into the room.

“What is it, Sarah?” Anna straightened, noticing the wild look on the girl’s face. Hope spiked in her chest. “Has the post come? Is there word from Bath?”

Anna was on tenterhooks, waiting to hear back from Bardwell’s School for Girls, who had advertised for a young lady to teach geography and history. True, she had no experience, but she had knowledge and she needed the position. She needed a place to go. A safe place to hide away. And so she had sent in a letter of application.

More than that, she had sent a sample lesson with her letter—a carefully crafted report on the British territory island of Bermuda. How she had labored over it! She had worked hard to make it informative, interesting, and amusing. She had tried to make the place come alive, including thrilling tales of the shipwreck of English settlers and sailors’ stories of hauntings. Painstakingly, she had etched images of the local bats, birds, lizards, and sea turtles, hiding lessons on the ship-building industry, the salt trade, and the building of a Royal Naval dockyard in amongst the more interesting tidbits. She hoped it would be enough to win her the position, and she had begun to prepare more lessons in the hope that it would be hers.

“No, miss.” Sarah clutched a hand to her chest, her face contorting. “It’s not the post. He’s here!”

“Who? The vicar?” Anna frowned. Reverend Brandage was not meant to arrive until teatime. She was not looking forward to hearing him scold her again about staying at Martin’s Nest without a chaperone. He had advised her to set off for her aunt’s home at once, but her father had long been estranged from his sister. Anna had never met her nor had so much as a letter from her. Not even a card of condolence.

No. She hoped to be off to Bath in just a few short weeks, but that answer had not satisfied the clergyman.

“No, miss! Him . The earl! The new earl!”

She’d been holding a book on the Channel Islands as she bent over the atlas. At Sarah’s news, she dropped it and let it slide to the floor. “What? Here? Now?”

Oh, no. No . Not her cousin Thomas, the new Earl of Martindale. She gripped the edge of the desk. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready. Her father had only been buried weeks ago. Her plans were not finalized. Everything was still in chaos.

“And, oh, miss! It’s worse! His lordship is not alone. He’s brought a great gaggle of friends with him. Young men, miss! Two carriages full of them. And not one of them looks a bit respectable.” Sarah lowered her voice to a horrified whisper. “I think they’ve been drinking on the journey. Foxed, the lot of them!”

Worse and worse. Anna flinched as a great banging sounded from the front of the house. “Where is she? Where is that pretty cousin of mine? Bring her out!”

Anna exchanged a stricken glance with Sarah.

“Anna! Where are you, girl?”

With a worried glance back at her father’s desk, she slowly made her way to the front of the house. Her cousin stood in the entry hall, admonishing the footmen to treat his luggage with care. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair tousled. As she drew closer, she saw his eyes were red rimmed. Beyond him, through the open door, she could see a raucous crowd of gentlemen milling around in the drive.

“There she is!” Thomas raked his gaze over her black gown. “Our pretty little crow.”

He did not wear so much as a black armband, Anna noted.

“Thomas,” she greeted him with a nod. “This is a surprise. What are you doing here?”

He stilled, then scowled. “What am I doing here?” he repeated. “What am I doing here?” He threw out his hands and raised his voice. “It is my house, is it not?”

“Of course it is,” she replied. Martin’s Nest was his now. The title was his. Everything entailed was his. But the vast sum her father had left her was hers—or it would be, once she turned five and twenty.

“I can throw a house party, then, can I not? In my own house!” He sounded belligerent—and as if he had indeed been drinking.

“I… But… We were not expecting you so soon. That is all I meant.” She gave a quick glance past him as his friends began to file in. “But a party, Thomas? We are a house in mourning.”

“Mourning?” someone hooted. “We are celebrating!”

“Thomas is Martindale now,” another man said. “Decades before he might have been!”

Cheers echoed in the marbled hall.

“The old roué should have left that party an hour earlier,” a tall man said, stepping up right behind Thomas. He eyed her closely and grinned. “He would have been snug in his bed and that runaway cart would have struck someone else.”

Anna closed her eyes. Her father had been…problematic. More than she had even known. But he had still been all she had in the world.

“Now, gents,” Thomas objected. “It’s the girl’s father you are speaking of.”

She raised her chin. “Thomas, I am sorry, but you cannot stay. Not quite yet. I have no chaperone.”

“Of course you do. What of the companion your father hired to keep track of you? My solicitor says she is paid a pretty penny, and for not much work.” He sniffed. “What? Does she stand over you while you sit in the corner and read?”

Anna flushed. Her cousin had mocked her love of books since they were children.

“She has left the household,” she answered quietly.

“Left? Bored to death and carried out, feet first?”

Several guffaws came from the growing collection of gentlemen in the entryway.

Anna cast her gaze downward. “No.”

“What then?” Thomas waggled his brows. “Did she run off with a strapping new footman?”

“No.” She raised her eyes and glared at him. “With the squire’s strapping younger son.”

Thomas blinked and then laughed. “Oh, ho! I’ll wager that has stirred the scandal broth!”

“It has. Which is why you cannot stay here tonight, Thomas! Every local eye is trained upon Martin’s Nest. It is bad enough I have been left here alone. I certainly cannot stay here with all of you .” She gestured. “Not without a proper chaperone.”

Her cousin merely shrugged.

“Thomas!”

He sneered at her. “If you are so concerned with your reputation, then you may pack your bags and find somewhere else to stay, for we will be here for the next fortnight, at the least.”

“But…where?”

Another shrug. “Take a carriage and drop yourself on my mother’s doorstep.” He turned away with a snort. “And may you have better luck pleasing her than I ever have.”

“Your mother lives in Devonshire.”

“Then you had better get started.”

“Come now, Martindale,” the tall man broke in. “Think, man. A single girl traveling alone is as improper as her other choices.”

Anna took a step back as her cousin’s friend moved closer.

“Now, now,” he crooned. His dark eyes glinted as he let his gaze roam over her. “Your reputation has already taken a blow, it seems. You’ll be just as tarnished if you stay or if you go. You might as well snuggle in here at home and have a bit of fun with us.”

The leer on his face made it clear what he meant. Bowing over her hand, he looked up at her past heavy brows. “I am Marcus, Viscount Kenniston,” he purred. “And you are Lady Anna Parbury. Beauty. Bookworm. And considerable heiress, or so we have heard.”

She snatched her hand away.

Kenniston laughed. “Come, now. Why not relax and join our revels? We have many games planned—and you feature in several of them, my dear.”

Anna reared back in shock. So that was the way of it. Her cousin had brought his friends here because he meant to ruin her. If she stayed she would be utterly compromised. Viewed as unmarriageable by the rest of good Society. Unless, that was, one of these so-called gentlemen deigned to marry her—and gained her fortune in doing so.

No doubt it was a plan they had all agreed to. Games, indeed. Would they gamble for her hand? Get up a game of darts? A horse race? She had seen several of them mounted outside. Archery, perhaps.

Well, she would be damned before she became their matrimonial prize.

Whirling on her heel, she raced upstairs to her room. Slamming the door shut, she turned the lock and slumped against it. Even if she stayed locked in here until Thomas and his friends left, her reputation would still be in tatters.

Curse Thomas for a selfish, loathsome fool. Likely he was angry over the amount of money her father had left for her. Money that he would not get. Anna wouldn’t put it past him to have arranged this party and stipulated that the man who wed her pay him a percentage.

Footsteps sounded in the passage. No doubt the servants were bringing luggage upstairs to the guest rooms. But the steps paused outside her door, and she froze as she heard the attempt to turn the latch.

A soft chuckle sounded when the would-be intruder found the door locked. “Very wise, my dear.”

Viscount Kenniston.

“I laud your wariness, Lady Anna, but you cannot hide away forever.” He spoke low and very close to the door. “You may hide. You may use every caution. But you will make a mistake and leave yourself vulnerable.” Another chuckle. “And when you do, I will be there.”

All the hair on her nape stood on end. She pressed a hand to her mouth and backed away from the door.

The footsteps moved on.

Trembling, Anna sank onto her bed. She could not stay! But where to go? What to do?

Someone would help her. Surely, someone would.

Jumping up, she marched to her wardrobe. Yanking out a spencer and bonnet, she threw up the window sash and tossed them out before swinging out to follow the thin ledge to the gnarled oak at the back corner of the house. It had been a couple of years since she had escaped in this fashion. The tree had grown, but so had she. She could do it. She would do it. Pressing her lips together, she reached for a branch.

She must.

Elliott Ward strode up the long drive toward Martin’s Nest, fighting to keep his stride normal and his mask in place. No easy task. The estate was obviously well cared for, as were the tenant farms and the mill down by the river.

He had made a point of touring about a bit after his arrival in the village yesterday. He had wanted to get a sense of the place and hear how the earl’s people felt about his passing. They were universally nervous, he’d found. The old earl had not been around much. He had preferred London, but had kept a good land steward. His daughter, left in residence with a hired companion, was well liked and attentive to the tenants and the community. They worried for her future—and their own.

Elliott had listened and swallowed back every bitter retort. They all feared losing their easy, contented, and prosperous way of life. Not one of them appeared to be aware it was all based on lies, deceit, and manipulation. No one here seemed to know that the old Earl of Martindale had been a rogue. A cheat. A blackmailer.

Elliott knew. He knew the rot that had been hidden behind Martindale’s charming facade. And to be truthful, he was worried, too. Like the locals, he knew that the new earl was likely to be worse.

Thomas Parbury did not even attempt to hide his debauchery or his cynical, wanton, destructive ways. From what Elliott had been able to discover, the old earl had breezed his way through his blackmailing, hiding his threats behind smiles, conducting his dark business over a bit of brandy or during a waltz. But the new earl? Thomas Parbury was of an age with Elliott. He’d seen and heard enough of the man to know that if Thomas got his hands on the old earl’s files, the results would be swift and brutal. He would squeeze his victims for every penny and then expose them for sheer entertainment.

Elliott could not let that happen.

He wondered what the daughter knew about her father’s past and her own future. He didn’t much care, truthfully. He had his own mission to accomplish.

He’d concocted a story about a debt owed to her father and a wish to repay it in person. Flimsy, to be honest, but he only needed to get inside, to scope the lay of the house so that he might get back in again later and steal away the evidence Martindale had possessed.

He pulled up short as he rounded a curve and caught his first glimpse of the house.

Hell and damnation . He was too late.

Two carriages were pulled up in front of the house. Blooded horses and men in fine clothes milled about the drive. Laughter and taunting filled the air. Surely it must be Thomas Parbury and his band of rowdy friends. The new Earl of Martindale had come to claim the manor.

Alarm spiked in Elliott’s gut. He had to get in there. He had to retrieve what he’d come for before Martindale discovered it.

Think. He could use the chaos of their arrival. But he couldn’t go in the front door. He was known to some of those men.

The back—he could go through the servants’ entrance. He looked down at his finely tailored clothes. A valet. Many of them dressed as well as their masters. He backtracked a little and took the diverging lane that would lead to the back of the house. It skirted the gardens at the side of the house. At one spot he passed a bench with a flowerbed planted nearby. Someone had been working in it and left a coat and hat draped over the bench. No doubt a gardener had been called in to help carry luggage.

Removing his fine beaver hat, he tucked it behind a shrub and took up the worn leather one that had been left behind. His mind turning furiously, he approached the back of the house, passing stacks of crates and bins. Pausing with his hand on the servants’ entrance door, he breathed deep. He could do this.

He must.